According to The Detroit News, General Motors (GM) saw a 32 percent decrease in Volt sales for the month of October 2013 compared to October 2012.

The drop sent sales from 2,961 Volt sales in October 2012 to 2,022 last month. For the year overall, Volt sales are down 2.7 percent to 18,782.

Why the drop? According to Edmunds.com senior analyst Michelle Krebs, gas prices are continuing to fall and traditional gas-powered vehicles are achieving 40 MPG and higher, meaning that some consumers don't see the need for electric vehicles.

But other EVs seem to be doing just fine despite competition from gas vehicles. Nissan's all-electric Leaf, for instance, saw a 27 percent increase in October sales to 2,002. The Leaf's year-to-date sales are up 167 percent to 18,078 -- right on the Volt's tail.

Nissan has made some enticing offers for the Leaf this year as a way to increase sales. For instance, it cut the Leaf's base model price more than $6,000 to $28,800 back in January. It also dropped lease prices for the Leaf in an attempt to get more of them on the road.

Since then, it has addressed issues like batteries overheating by testing a new Leaf battery with a different lithium-ion cell chemistry meant to handle heat (the tests are putting the batteries in sustained internal temperatures of 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), and if all goes well, they'll be available in April 2014) and offering Leaf customers free charging for one year in Texas starting October 1 (it's due to spread to other states over time).

The Volt saw a price drop recently to spur sales as well. In August, GM reported that it would cut $5,000 from the base MSRP of the Chevrolet Volt. As a result, the new price of entry for the plug-in is $34,995. Of course, this still makes it more expensive than the Leaf.

Every 6 weeks the engine will turn on and will burn some gas, around 0.04 gallons on average. I've had 14 of these.

The Volt monitors the age of the gasoline in the tank. Back in June I received a message that I needed to burn off the gasoline. I had a full tank and most of the gas was from the dealer so I let the car run and burn off the entire tank until it was actually out of gas. I then filled-up with the minimum to turn off the fuel maintenance which was 1.2 gallons. This way in another year I will have very little to burn off. You can just add gasoline to the existing gas, but that will simply average the age of the gas. By having an empty tank, I will get a full year with the new gas.

This did kill my MPG as it dropped from 6,000 to 2,000. Of course MPG is really a meaningless number in the Volt when it is driven almost purely on electric.

"A politician stumbles over himself... Then they pick it out. They edit it. He runs the clip, and then he makes a funny face, and the whole audience has a Pavlovian response." -- Joe Scarborough on John Stewart over Jim Cramer